Clue #4 Done!

I'm so excited that I have been able to keep up with the clues this mystery!  In all of the mysteries that I have done previously I have always been behind by the time we got to clue number four.  Last week with clue number 3 I wasn't so sure that I'd be able to finish in time, but this week I was done by Saturday night.  I was able to pull all of the blue fabrics from my precut strips and squares and some of the browns.  This has helped speed up cutting so much!  As a mater of fact I got the clue shortly before leaving for work on Friday and was able to quickly grab strips out of my drawers and bring them to work to cut at lunch.  Because I have been able to pull so much from my precut drawers I have barely touched the fabrics I pulled for the mystery except for the coral fabrics since that is not a color that I use often.  I can't wait for the next clue to come out! I'm participating in Bonnie Hunter's Mystery Monday link-up so make sure to go here to see what other's are doing.

Done in the nick of time.

Wow clue # 3 of Bonnie Hunter's "On Ringo Lake" mystery was a big one!  I got done just in the nick of time to start a new clue tomorrow.  There were some questioning looks from my co-workers as I drew lines during breaks between patients and later in the week cut down blocks in preparation for pressing. The last of the blocks were finished being pressed just in time for bed tonight.

For this year's mystery I have gone a little more wild than usual with my background fabrics, but I think it will look fine in the end.  I have so far managed to pull all of the background fabrics and quite a few other block parts and precut strips from my precut drawers.  Not only is it nice to be able to use up things have been sitting around for awhile, it has saved me a ton of time on cutting the steps.  

I'm posting this in Bonnie Hunters Mystery Monday Link-up for Clue #3.  You can find that post here.  Be sure to go check out all of the other On Ringo Lake quilts that are being made!

Cutting done ready to sew

Cutting off waste triangles

Finally 

Look Angela I blogged!

After several years of not participating I have decided to play along with Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt this year.  It has been exciting to get the new clue each week and so far I have managed to keep up.  Hopefully this will continue as the mystery goes along.  This year I have decided to follow along with Bonnie's color choices and was able to pull most fabrics from my stash.  I have purchased 3 pieces of the rust colored fabric since I needed a bit more variety for the quilt.  I have also been pleasantly surprised that I have been able to pull a lot of strips from my precut drawers for use in this quilt as well.  To see what this mystery is all about be sure to check out Bonnie's blog and the mystery link-up here:  http://bit.ly/2BFe75V 

Thai Chicken Salad

Posting this here so I can remember it later.

In a Quart Jar layer:

2 T edamame

Roast Chicken

Approx 1 cup chopped red and green cabbage

2 T shredded carrots

1/2 T sliced green onions

1-2 T cilantro leaves 

1/4 of a lime

2 T roasted Salted Peanuts

In a small bag on top 2T crispy Chinese noodles

Sauce( enough for 2-3 salads)

2 T pb2

2 T olive oil (original called for sesame oil)

2 T soy sauce 

2 T brown sugar

1T sesame seeds

To serve squeeze over lime juice toss with approx 1 oz peanut sauce

Stuffed Peppers

This is a recipe that can easily be changed to suit your mood.

Basic Recipe

1# ground beef

1 cup instant rice

1 egg

1 can tomato sauce

About 5 green bell peppers for stuffing

Mix first 4 ingredients stuff in peppers, top with an additional can of tomato sauce and bake at 350 for about an hour.

What I usually add:

2 T taco seasoning

2 cloves garlic minced

1/4 medium onion minced

The tops of a couple peppers minced

About 1 celery stalk minced

Sometimes I'll go all sneaky chef on my kids and throw in some shreded zucchini.  I've also omitted the taco seasoning and used marinara instead of the tomato sauce.  The possibilities are endless.

If you have a Pampered Chef Deep Dish covered baker you can microwave this for about 25 minutes and then let it sit in the microwave for an additional 15 minutes.

One person's trash is another's treasure

I love getting bags of scraps from other people, there are so many possibilities. This quilt was made entirely out of other people scraps. The broken dishes blocks are from a small sandwich bag full of "waste triangles" and the borders are from random scraps. I love it! This will be going on my wall of small quilts.

My Challenge for 2013

I taught myself to knit back when Alex was a baby because I wanted to use wool soakers with my cloth diapers and wasn't willing to pay $50+ for one. Since that time I have knitted mostly dishcloths and scrubbies. This year I decided it was time to expand my knitting horizons and made a goal to learn to knit socks. I started by buying a knitting class from Craftsy. Next I bought some yarn and some impossibly tiny needles. Finally this weekend my friend Angela and I sat down together and started working on some socks. This is how far I've gotten up until now. I have actually knitted about twice this much but I spent about as much time ripping stitches as I did knitting. The other picture is of Angela trying to get the hang of knitting of 5 needles rather than the usual 2.

Brown Sugar Granola

I originally got this recipe from The Hillbilly Housewife but when I went looking for it recently she had changed the recipe.  Here is the original recipe that my kids and I love.

Brown Sugar Granola

1/2 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup water
1/4 tsp salt
4 cups rolled oats
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup dried fruits (optional)
1/2 cup nuts or seeds (optional, we like almonds)

In a large saucepan melt the butter, sugar and water together.  Stir well and let it simmer for a 2-3 minutes.  Add the salt, oatmeal and cinnamon stir until evenly coated.  Bake at 375 for 10 minutes or until golden brown.  Let cool in the pan, then break into pieces.  Add any fruit or nuts (I like to bake the nuts right in the granola) and store in an airtight container.

Easy Street Step 7 and 8

I'm chugging along on finishing up Easy Street.  I have most of step 7 done and have started the A blocks for step 8.  I didn't get as much sewing done this weekend as I hoped because I completely reorganized the kids playroom and book storage which took up most of my time.  I was lucky enough to sew with Kathy and Barb Saturday night for a few hours and Angela for a few hours on Sunday afternoon.

This week Oreo has decided that she is quilting quality control!  As you can see she inspected my blocks in progress to make sure the workmanship was up to snuff and then she moved on to the ironing board to oversee that step aslo :)

I'm very excited to get to finally meet Bonnie this Thursday at her lecture in Cottonwood.  I have been a fan of her's for about 7 years now and it will be nice to finally meet her.

I'm posting this as part of Bonnie's Mystery Monday Link-up.  You can see the other quilts in progress here
.

My First Influenster Box

I love trying out new products, especially when I get to try them for free!  Just before Christmas I got my first Vox box in the mail from influenster.  So far we have tried out the hairbrush which has microfiber bristles to help dry your hair faster.  Abbie gives it a thumbs up.  Not pictured is the NYC New York Color Liquid Lipshine because it is in my purse because I wore it the other day.  The other item not pictured is the Quaker Real Medleys Oatmeal that I brought to work and will have it for breakfast next week.  I'll let you know how it tastes.

Easy Street Clue 6

As the name of the mystery suggests this weeks clue was very easy. I finished it today in record time. This weeks clue has us cutting triangles which makes me suspect that this quilt will be on point.

Clue 5 done

I finished clue 5 tonight.  I really like the colors in this quilt, but I am still stumped about what the final quilt is going to look like.  Can't wait for tomorrow's clue!

I'm linking this up to Bonnie Hunter's Mystery Monday linkup here.

Easy Street Clue 4 Done

Bonnie said that as we get closer to Christmas the clues for her Easy Street mystery were supposed to get easier. I have to disagree with her on that this week. This week seemed to take twice as long as last week, but I finally managed to finish tonight. I am really liking the colors that were chosen for this quilt!

Easy Street Part 3 Done

This year some friends and I have all decided to do Bonnie Hunter's latest mystery.  I have greatly enjoyed the added camaraderie of doing the mystery together.  It is way more fun to sew with a group than it is to sew by myself.  This last weekend I went over to my friend Angela's house to work on clue #3 and was able to finish it in just a few hours.  The pictures are clue #1, #2 and finally #3.  I am posting this as part of Bonnie's Mystery Monday linkup.  You can find other posts here.

Sunbonnet Sue Blocks

 The other night at Nimble thimbles I was fortunate to get some great Sunbonnet Sue blocks and a great quilt.  To my untrained eye I would say that these are 1930's fabrics but I'm not sure.  The Dresden plate quilt appears to be long-arm machine quilted and machine pieced so I am not sure if this is an older top that someone had finished, a multi-generational project or what.  Unfortunately both items smelled very strongly of moth balls and even in the short time with them in my car on the way home from guild I had a headache, watery eyes and an itchy nose.  I knew it would be a risk to wash the quilt but with the odor the way it was I felt I had no choice but to try.  So the quilt got washed in cold water on the gentle cycle the first time with baking soda added to the water and the second with vinegar added to the water.  I also used a couple color catchers in case the colors ran.  Even after two washings the quilt still smelled pretty bad but I decided to hang it to dry and see how it was in the morning.  Luckily it smelled much better in the morning and now only has a faint moth ball odor.  I didn't want to risk washing the blocks so I took and old sheet and sprayed it with febreze and laid the blocks on top then I folded the sheet over the top of the blocks and sprayed again with febreze and let it sit overnight.  This got rid of most of the odor but touching them is still a bit irritating to my skin and eyes so I am trying to get the top pieced and quilted asap so that I can wash it.

Fortunately I  recently got the perfect color solid lavender fabric at a quilters garage sale that I was able to use for sashing.  Now I can't decide what to do around the outside.  My original plan was to use the same size purple sashing around the edges, but I would like this quilt to be twin sized and that would make it plenty wide but not long enough.  My other thought would be to make the top and bottom sashing bigger than the sides but I am not quite sure I would like the look of that.  The last option is this floral fabric that I found in my stash.  I was thinking about an inner border in the purple and then a 4" or 5" border in the floral.  What do you think?

With Sashing

Close-up of Dresden Plate

Border Option

Dresden Plate

See my time on pinterest IS useful!

Abbie and her complete bracelet

Abbie's duct tape wallet

Alex winding embroidery floss

Yumm!

I want more!

These went FAST

Apparently I decided to put my pinterest addiction to use today.  We started off the day with Banana Baked Oatmeal and since I had the oven heated up I decided to make a batch of granola too. Then the kids and I gave the dogs a bath and headed to the pool.  After the pool we ran a couple errands and then came home and rested.  After that I taught the kids how to make a simple friendship bracelet out of embroidery floss (and had the bonus of teaching my kids how to wind embroidery floss onto those cardboard bobbins).  Next we made yummy cinnamon sugar pretzel bites (which was basically our dinner, just being honest).  Lastly we headed out to Michael's for a free make and take and the kids got to make duct tape wallets.  A very busy but productive day!

** Here is my granola recipe.  I was going to link to the site that I got it from but she has commercialized to so much that I now can't find the recipe anymore.

Brown Sugar Granola

1/2 cup margarine (I use butter)
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup water
1/4 tsp salt
4 cups old fashioned oats (not instant)
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup dried fruit (optional)
1/2 cup nuts or seeds (optional)

In a large saucepan melt the margarine, sugar and water.  Stir well and let it simmer for 2-3 minutes.  Add the salt oatmeal and cinnamon. Remove from heat, stir until all the oats are moistened.  Place granola onto a cookie sheet with sides and bake at 375 for 10 minutes (should be golden brown).  Allow granola to cool in pan.  When cool break into chunks and store in an airtight canister (if using add fruit and/or nuts at this point).

This is the best granola, easy to make and tasty.  We like to just it it by the handful but it can also be eaten on top of yogurt or like regular cereal with milk.

Summer Fun

I'm writing this more to remind me of things to do with the kids this summer but thought some others might like this information too.

Summer Reading Programs:

Maricopa County Library District earn a free book when you read 24 plus prizes for every 8 you read

Barnes and Noble get a free book when you read 8

Half Price Books get a $5 gift certificate when you read 300 minutes

Fun Things to Do:

Bookmans Summer Kids Club, at the Mesa store there are free kids events every Wednesday at 1pm, sign up for their kids club and get 10% off your purchase.

Bass Pro Shops Family Summer Camp, free crafts, smores cookout, workshops and activities.  They even have workshops for boy scouts to earn merit badges.  These are on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday.

Michaels, free crafts every Tuesday,Thursday and Saturday from 1-4pm

Harkins Summer Movie Fun 10 weeks of kids movies for $7.  Most of the East Valley sites are sold out but the Chandler Mall one still has passes.

Lowes Build and Grow offers free kids clinics on Saturdays and Sundays throughout the year.

Home Depot Kids Workshop is on the first Saturday of every month.

Free Breakfast/Lunch:

These are all free for children 1-18 regardless of income.  The kids and I went today and they thought it was a great treat.

AZ state information

Higley School District

Mesa School District

Chandler School District

Gilbert School District

Queen Creek School District

Can you think of any more free or cheap things to do with the kids this summer?

A small wall quilt

A few weeks ago I saw a cute trip around the world quilt at my friends house and wanted to make one for myself.  I decided to use leftover scraps from making Bonnie Hunter's Carolina Crossroads and came up with this Neapolitan colored wall-hanging.  It's finished size is 12'x12" and is hanging in a spot by my front door. The pattern is "A for Adaminaby" from Australian Patchwork and Quilting (I'm not sure the month or year).

Selling Train Stuff

Alex has decided that he no longer wants his train table or trains. If you are interested let me know.

Train table

Trains and Tracks

Another Good Quote

“Success means having the courage, the determination, and the will to become the person you believe you were meant to be” -George Sheehan